Spanish Moss
by Havalina
Summary: Spain, 1926. Young, idealistic Jasper heads to the Spanish coast on a holiday with rich Americans and finds he has much to learn from a mysterious fellow Englishman. Slash.


**This was my entry for the Eurofornication contest. It won Judge's Pick. Enjoy!**

^v^SM^v^ 

_"It won't be something you fear again. Look at you. You're like a slip of a girl, shaking and terrified." He laughed at me. Then turned cold and serious. "Let me show you."_

I didn't feel as if I were being turned out of the house, and I told Mother as much. Knowing that Father wanted me to meet his colleagues, his friends, in order to learn a bit from them gave me a genuine sense of pride. And if I could send some business or leads back to The Guardian, all the better.

That was the story I told my concerned mother. I knew my father, the editorial head at The Guardian, wanted me out of England for the summer not so much for work experiences, but for one last hurrah before I started university. Arranging for me to be met in Spain by some of his journalism friends was the best way to soothe my mother's fears. She wasn't quite ready for her 17 year old son to enter a grown man's world, with its responsibilities and its vices. But I was more than ready.

"Jasper, enjoy yourself. You can learn a lot about the newspaper business and reporting from Reggie. Almost as much as you've learned from me. But enjoy the holiday, son. These boys aren't mamby-pambies. It'll be two long months of debauch if they're anything like they were before the war. Just remember, when you're home, it's done. University. The paper. A girl to wed. That's your life and your focus by fall. Get it out now, boy. Get it out and be done with it."

__

_It was hot, so sweltering. I knew the rivulets of sweat along my spine were soaking his shirttails. "Get it out now. Get it out, boy."_

The summer of 1926 so far had been unbearably hot in England, so I was surprised to see the skies so overcast in San Sebastian. I was anxious to get my feel for the small coastal town before we left for Pamplona. Smartly dressed, I stepped out into the street near my hostel and took my first good look around the town. Almost immediately, I pulled off my fedora. None of the men on the street were in hats. Was it really less a matter of fashion and more one of necessity here? No sun, no brim? I wasn't sure.

Just like that I'd lost a bit of my confidence. I didn't want to stand out as a pink-eared student in the festival throngs. I'd only been on Spanish soil for two hours, and I already felt the weight of my inexperience.

__

_The sensation of lips and tongue along the swirl of my ear made me shiver under the sweat. "You don't know it yet, but it'll be good. You don't know a thing."_

I was meant to meet Reggie and the others at a tavern for lunch. So I spent the morning, overcast though it was, walking through Parte Vieja alone. I wanted to hike the hill, but was unprepared for how the salty air affected me. I felt a little listless, almost drunk with the change in atmosphere. I kept lifting my head, eyes closed, to the sky and gulping huge draughts of sea-misted air into my lungs, exhaling forcefully. It was in one of these moments that I felt the acute burn of embarrassment, feeling that someone was watching me and judging my admittedly peculiar behavior. I opened my eyes and turned my head to the open breezeway that led to the demilitarized part of the city. There was a man stooped there, most definitely eyeing me as he let a small dog on a leash to the ground. I gave a courteous nod and turned towards the cathedral. He was extremely well-dressed, and the only man on the street in a hat or with such an animal. Not the type of friend I was looking to make today.

__

_"We won't be friends. Or fishing buddies. Or lovers. We won't. But we'll have this. In fact, I'll be the only one to ever have this."_

I found Reggie's preferred tavern easily enough; it was along the avenue catty-cornered to my hostel. The salt-water breeze behind my back lifted the light curtains on the open windows as I walked through the door. I knew immediately I wasn't in London. Crowded pub tables, fried smells and the potent scent of ale were nowhere to be had. The room that spread out in front of me was spacious and open. The center of the floor was tiled with a gorgeous green and white mosaic, and long yellow benches like church pews rowed along the walls. I could smell the spice in the food that was being prepared for lunch, and began to salivate. Carafes of what looked like wine sat on the two occupied tables.

Reginald Holmes was a burly man, not as tall as my father or me, but broad and well-stocked. He sported an ironic mustache that curled around to his sideburns in a style much better suited 25 years ago. He bellowed when he saw me in the doorway.

"Jasper Hale! You sad sap, come in, kid. Come in for Chris' sakes." Reggie was so American. His trousers were so wide and worn they looked like they were made from cowboy dusters, and he wore a wide-brimmed cap, high on his forehead. No tie. White boat shoes and dark blue socks. He was shabby and ridiculous, but still, the most enigmatic and wealthy writer on either side of the Atlantic.

"Afternoon, Reggie," I greeted him with a hearty handshake, like the Americans do. "Glad I found you amidst the festivities. Trust you to find the one pub in town that's practically empty."

"It's only empty because I asked it to be. Come, Jasper, meet the crew. This will be Alistair Bright. He was a war photographer for your father's paper, and he'll be documenting the running next week."

"Alistair. How do you do," I greeted him. Alistair was thin and improbably short, closer to five foot than six, and it gave him a boyish air. I wondered how much he had stood out in the lower trenches. He had pencil-thin beard around his chin. I'd never seen one like it. With his pitch-colored hair, that beard looked lined on, as if drawn with a child's wax color.

Reggie continued to introduce me around the circle before I sat. They were writers and artists, a group of friends who made their living wildly - the more wildly they lived, the more interesting their words, their pictures, their canvases.

Aro Cole, his Jewish friend who owned the summer house near Biarritz where we planned to holiday later in the month, was paunchy and timid. I got the distinct feeling that he didn't like me. Aro was a novelist; his latest was banned at home for a short time until the Americans made it so infamous, the British publishing houses tore at one another to get it. Despite the approval of the fickle American literary world, it was _this_ that made him smug, to have the attention of these few Americans sitting in a Spanish tavern. I didn't understand him in the least.

Reggie's wife, Mary Alice, was a curious girl but was kind to me. Her short hair and masculine clothing made her more comfortable in the boys' club, I gathered. Rosalie Michaels, on the other hand, was the obvious darling of the bunch, and looked to be studiously avoiding me, attending to something under the table, even as we were introduced. She gave me a passing glance when I greeted her, and then returned to whatever toy was at her feet. Aro and Alistair were both turned toward her, attempting to stake a claim with their body language. She was beautiful, no doubt, with her long blonde hair, delicate features, and smooth skin.

"Oh, little Quill!" Rosalie's little exclamation garnered the attention of the entire table. Confusion settled around me when she placed a tiny dog on her lap above the tablecloth, the same one I'd encountered earlier.

"Still such a ridiculous name."

"Hush, Reggie, he's my muse. Without him, I could pen nothing. He's my perfect little quill."

"You do realize that a small domesticated animal has all the depth of a child's wading pool for influencing poetry. Perhaps if you wrote advertisements for the trade papers, you could claim his exuberance over shiny baubles as inspiration, but not poetry. Please, never poetry. I can't take you seriously."

"Reginald, you've obviously never spent a morning alone with Quill's scintillating company. Which is just a tragedy." As the newcomer's voice reached my ear, I turned my head to the left to see who it was. So I wasn't seeing things. It was the man from the breezeway, and he was walking toward us with purpose, swinging an umbrella.

"Ah, Edward, claim Quill all you will. The truth is, he loves the ladies." Rosalie's laughter was followed by Aro's and Alistair's. But the newcomer, Edward, only smirked.

"And who is this?"

"Edward Masen, this is Jasper Hale, son of C.T. Hale, from the editor for The Guardian. You couldn't have met Hale that I know of; he's been in London since the war. Jasper, this is Edward Masen, a colleague. He's a Brit, like you, but he's been abroad for the better part of the last decade. Care to tell Jasper why, Edward?" Reggie's snide introduction seemed not to affect this Mr. Masen.

"Oh, all the better to have him find out on his own, I believe."

Edward Masen. I couldn't have painted a better foil for Reggie and the rest of his comrades. Edward was refined in a European way that even the most fashionable of transplanted Americans couldn't achieve. He was lean, tall like me, with a wickedly gorgeous face. He wore narrow light-colored trousers that sat high on his waist. His tie was so perfectly tucked under his waistcoat it was as if they were sewn together. He was all light colors and sharp creases. He had to be the only man on the bay to be wearing a straw boater - the same hat I'd noticed earlier - under which sat a shock of rust-brown hair. He seemed determined to stay refined. I felt so self-conscious in my Oxford bags and wide spread shirt, appropriate attire though it was for summering in Spain. Mr. Masen's flawless presence made me feel hopelessly pedestrian, as if I tried too hard and still failed. As I looked him over I noticed only one defect in his impeccable appearance - the left cuff on his pant leg was slightly bent under his heel, the only evidence that he may have dressed in a hurry. I suddenly realized just how long I'd looked him over.

I stood to shake his hand, and knew when my eyes met his that my scrutiny had not gone unnoticed. His mossy green eyes were alight with knowing: knowing I saw him in the street, knowing I took careful pains to avoid his stare, knowing he made me distinctly uncomfortable, knowing I had no idea why.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Masen."

"Yes, Mr. Hale," he said as we shook hands, and sat. "A pleasure."

__

_He had yet to touch me with his hands, but I somehow knew they were close, ghosting along my hips and thighs. With the first brush of his fingers against me, I harshly whispered, "Yes." His reply came smoothly across my collar, "Mmmm, my pleasure."_

The sangria didn't stop flowing for the rest of the afternoon as we sat and mulled about poetry, maritime art, San Fermin and fruit trees. I didn't have much to add to the conversation, but Reggie made up for it. Instead I watched Alistair attempt to seduce Rosalie by laving attention on her pooch, and observed Mary Alice enter a very loose, completely drunken state before three o'clock. Mr. Masen was astute but aloof, watching everyone with keen eyes but attracting no one's particular attention. No one's but mine.

__

_"Are you attracted to him? Do you desire him? You haven't stopped looking at his body since he set it out like a buffet for you."_

The sun came out in just enough time for it to set gloriously. The sky went from gray to gold to purple in half an hour. I began to hear the beginnings of the nighttime festivities; music and shouting and a general restlessness in the streets reminded us that our quiet afternoon was sure to turn into a raucous evening. Reggie made sure I knew of it as well.

"Hale, this won't be like those parlor parties you're used to at home, you know. Are you, um, prepared for every eventuality, son?"

"I'm fairly adept at searching out my own means to an end, Reginald. I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Good answer, son. Let's find you some company that's not old men, shall we?"

"Lead the way."

The night wore on in blasts of color. Rosalie was wearing lilac tights that I spotted when she twirled. The liquor was honey-colored and copious. Reggie's socks weren't dark blue, they were purple, and I knew this because he hefted his shoeless feet onto the table for an hour while he slept. The candle on my table pooled wax into green bubbled glass. Mary Alice had changed into a red spotted blouse, which a man tore as he danced with her, exposing her sharp shoulder. The cellist's instrument was painted a deep mustard, and he never stopped playing. Edward ceaselessly ran his hands through his rust-colored hair.

"Mr. Hale, what are your plans for when you return from holiday?" he asked me.

"Please call me Jasper, Mr. Masen. I have been accepted at Oxford, as well as an apprenticeship with my father. I'm expected back in September."

The young man who had been standing behind the bar counter all evening suddenly sprang across it, beckoned by the change in music and the request of a friend for a dance. He was dressed all in white, but for his red sash, like the San Fermin day festival goers, but he removed his shirt when he spun to the floor.

His chest was heroic, smooth and so brown. He clapped his hands above his head and began to move only from the waist down in some gregarious Spanish dance that this English school boy could never have imitated. Instead I watched.

"Not until the fall, then? Will you spend the whole of your holiday in Spain?" Edward's question pulled my attention away from the shirtless boy in the center of the room.

"No. I'm sure Reggie has plans to move about."

"Are you dependent on Reginald then?" My eyes flickered between Edward's fingers as he twirled his tumbler and the young man's torso as he twisted.

"Dependent? No, Mr. Masen. But I would like to stay with him as long as I'm not a burden to him. I've much to learn from him."

The dance had grown in numbers, but the young bartender sauntered on, his chest rippling with movement and glowing with perspiration.

"Have you?"

"Um, yes. I have no wish to move directly into the editorship role at the paper. I have a knack and a keenness for writing. My father believes, and I agree, that watching Reggie compose this summer will help me tremendously. I feel like I've started my apprenticeship ahead of schedule."

"From this morning, you've done nothing but walk, drink and gawk, boy."

"Well, so have you."

"I've nothing to learn. I know it all already. Or have you forgotten that I'm a well-respected writer myself?"

"Are you suggesting I could learn more from you than from Mr. Holmes?"

"Not suggesting." His eyes slid to the dance still ongoing around us, and stopped on the boy. "Not suggesting at all."

His eyes returned to me, and the stare he gave me was penetrating and heated, and I couldn't look away. I was too unfamiliar with him to know why he would offer to mentor me but not allow me to call him by his given name. Or why he would remain aloof to everyone all evening but seem wholly interested in the details of my vacation.

A young woman danced into my line of sight and trailed her fingers along Edward's shoulder, pulling his attention away. The heat of the room, the bodies and the night, were weighing on me, and I pushed away from the table to get some fresher air in the alley.

The coolness of the brick dismissed its roughness as I slid my cheek along the wall. I tried inhaling the sea air as I had this morning, needing more to refresh me, but the air was murky, humid and tasted of pipe smoke. Night and day were truly opposites here.

"Do you really know what you need to learn, Jasper?" He came upon me so closely.

"What do you mean?" I straightened up from the wall as I asked, and my shoulder brushed his chest.

"This summer. It's not about journalism or fiction or poetry or art. Your daddy didn't send you here for summer school. Why are you really here, boy?"

"To be a man."

"This alley and this tavern are not aiding you at all in that endeavor. Come with me."

I don't know where I expected him to lead me, but we entered a small establishment with a soft reddish light coming from the pane in the door. An old man was playing the piano in the corner and several dozen people were dancing sensually amongst the tables. The music was hypnotizing, and I felt Edward step up behind me as he spoke in my ear.

"Find someone to dance with. Imagine no one is watching, and there are no repercussions." Then he stepped away. I saw him slide into a chair at a nearby table, his eyes on me the entire time. Despite the seeming impossibility of his request - how could I find a dance partner in a room of strangers? - it seemed that everyone was willing to slide against one another. There were no partners at all, just dancers. There were no steps, just bodies.

The music was tenuous and slow, and I closed my eyes as I began to step forward. I moved my hips back and forth, feeling foolish for every reason imaginable. An older woman slowly turned in front of me and placed her forearm on my shoulder, her hand in the hair at my nape, and began to sway with me. Her teeth were crooked and her face was lined, but she was beautiful as she moved. A moment later, I felt another body behind me, a strong back and a round, firm backside, hefted right beneath my own. It was a man, shorter than I, and turned away from me. I felt my body pull away from the woman touching me and melt into his. He was dancing with a young girl, hands on her hips, but his body was in full contact with mine as he undulated. My hips began to move with his. I removed the woman's arm from around my neck. She smiled and turned away. I glanced behind me to get a better look at my unwitting partner, but I never saw him.

My eyes immediately locked on Mr. Masen's, just ten meters away, slumped in his chair. It seemed as if he was looking at me, yet not, until I realized his dark green gaze was fixed on where I was adhered to this dancer. Unbidden, my hips moved forward and back, side to side, with more force and purpose than before. If my partner had not been aware of me before, he most certainly was now. I suddenly felt the young man's timid hand on the outside of my thigh, and in a flash, Edward was there, pulling me by the lapel and spinning me around to face away from him.

I no longer felt the hard back and sweet plump of a shorter man's body against mine, but instead the solid bulk of Edward's chest and the lean line of his thigh against mine. Somehow, the room became hotter, the music muffled, and the air heady all at once. A rush of blood to my head pulsed in my ears, and I whimpered with the sensation. I hadn't had a drink in hours, but I was intoxicated.

"Mmm...Jasper. Are you learning yet?" I don't know how I heard him with the rushing in my ears. It must have been because his soft lips grazed my earlobe as he spoke.

"Is this a lesson, Mr. Masen?"

"Yes, and my first instruction is that you not dare stop moving your hips." I felt his inhalation as his chest pushed against my shoulder blades. We were indecently close. So close, in fact, that I felt his indecency.

"Mr. Masen, Edward. Edward. This … what …"

"Do you have a question, Mr. Hale? I thought you had a way with words, or so you said. Do you need further instruction on how to move your tongue?"

"This isn't what I thought - this - was about."

"You should put your head to better use."

I felt the brush of his knuckles against my back, and startled at what he might be doing when I realized he was unbuttoning his waistcoat for the first time that day, loosening his tie. I turned my head, wanting to see him undone.

"Eyes front, Jasper," he snapped. "Watch your young boy if you must, but not me." We danced like that for a small eternity, my back to his open front, sweating and swaying together. He never touched me. But then I felt smooth lips and hot tongue along the swirl of my ear, and I shivered under the sweat. "You don't know it yet, but it'll be good. You don't know a thing."

We continued to move, and I felt my cock swell as he spoke things naughty and nonsensical to me. Whispered promises and harsh insinuations. He was a paradox of hedonism and spite. What was he doing to me? Something I couldn't articulate was filling my chest. I wanted... I felt out of control, unsure and confused. I needed to leave this room, this music, this moment. I needed to be tamed, not toyed with.

"There's something you need, isn't there, Jasper?"

He had yet to touch me with his hands, but I somehow knew they were close, ghosting along my hips and thighs. With the first brush of his fingers against me, I harshly whispered, "Yes." His reply came smoothly across my collar, "Mmmm, my pleasure."

He smoothly grabbed my elbow and led me to the stairs along the back of the room. Above the tavern there was a short hallway with a few doors, and he led me to one and unlocked it.

"Where is this, Edward?"

"This is my apartment, while I'm here. Shall we continue the lesson, then?"

The short walk upstairs had given me a reprieve, but had done little to slake my lust. I looked him directly in the eye and begged, "Please."

"You'll do exactly as I say, Jasper. It'll make it easier for you."

"I learn best by example, Mr. Masen." He narrowed his eyes at me and sharply inhaled. His lust was unmistakable, even to me. He hastily removed his waist coast, tie, and cufflinks, but ever so slowly, did he unbutton his shirt. I felt more conspicuous than ever in my baggy clothes, thinking how delicious the friction of his narrow pants must feel and how I longed for it.

"You want a demonstration, Jasper, I take it?" I nodded, and he rubbed his hand down his chest and into the waistband of his trousers. He popped the buttons from the inside, and with a practiced hand, pulled his heavy cock from behind his fly and began to stroke it.

My knees nearly buckled at the sight, and he smirked. As if he'd had enough of my gawking, he grabbed my arm and whisked me in front of him, as he'd done downstairs. My gasping breaths couldn't come fast enough. It was hot, so sweltering. I knew the rivulets of sweat along my spine were soaking his shirttails. "Show and tell time. Get it out now. Get it out, boy."

My belt undone, I dropped my pants completely with a fevered urgency. Cock in hand, I groaned at the sensation of finally being touched, even if it was by my own hand. I heard his gasp and felt his mouth biting the seam of my shirt along my shoulder as he whispered, "Goddamn." Then his mouth was on my neck, my ear, the hinge of my jaw. "Jasper, turn to me." As my shoulder grazed his sternum he took my mouth in his. It was Spanish heat and French wine. British boys and European lust. It wasn't enough.

I turned to him completely and whispered, "More" against his mouth. His groan reverberated through my body to my fingertips, and I abandoned my self-pleasure to fist my hands in his hair. Perfect moments passed this way, fingers trailing backs and thighs, forearms and napes. He pulled at my shirt, and I destroyed his. He gripped my shoulder blades and rutted against me harshly, our dicks rubbing and pulsing together.

A graphic realization assaulted me, and I fled out of his arms and to the wall. Even pressed against its solidity as I was, I couldn't conceal or cease my trembling.

"What … what are we doing?"

"What a question for right this moment, Jasper!" He stalked slowly towards me with his hands outstretched. "Your gorgeous body is on display for me, and I'm yearning for you. So here, now, in this room, I'm taking you."

"I'm petrified."

"Scared stiff?" He laughed. "Don't be. It won't be something you fear again." He'd moved directly in front of me, pinning me to the wall at my back. He pushed his left hip against me, angling himself to look me over. I thought he would kiss me again, but instead he took his warm, rough hand and gripped me where I needed it. "Look at you. You're like a slip of a girl, shaking and terrified." His laughter waned, and he stared into my eyes, turning cold and serious. "Let me show you." Then he slid to his knees.

I thought I knew something of fleshly desire and sexual pleasure. Despite my teenage imaginings and solitary experiments, I realized he had been right: I knew nothing. The heat and wet of his mouth pulled me in and slid me out, and I couldn't decide which I longed for more. It was sloppy and loud. I felt his spit gathering in my tangled hair as he brought his hand to the base of my cock and twisted it, earning a yelp from my parted lips. He dragged his wet fingers below his chin, to my backside. I tried to twist out of his grasp.

"Easy, Jasper, trust me." I couldn't relax, so he pulled me back into his mouth. I felt the back of his throat gulping me down, as he gently circled me with his finger. There was a fluttering pleasure that rippled throughout my groin as he touched my entrance. He swallowed around me once more, and I exploded, spilling every ounce of pleasure I had into his willing mouth.

He stood, grabbed my hair and kissed me heartily. The musky taste of my seed surprised me, but I reveled in the kiss and angled my head to receive more of him. He pulled my hand from around his neck and placed it on his cock, wrapping my fingers and his around him. I yanked and pulled and yearned to memorize his hardness with my fingertips.

"Jasper, steady. I want you on the bed. Come on." The room was small, so with a turn and a step our knees knocked the side of his mattress. He lowered us with a hand on the small of my back, never breaking our kiss. He began to kiss down my torso, pulling my leg up. With a smug smile he looked at me, no doubt looking ever so wanton and spent on his bed and said, "Try not to come again." Then he licked me. Licked up and in and around and inside me until I was squirming and screaming and begging him for another sensation. He obliged with his fingers, cool and slick and smelling of lavender oil, circling me slowly. He slid one inside me, penetrating me for the first time. I felt the wrongness of it, the awkward fullness. But I felt my cock rise as well.

He alternated fingers and tongue until I was thrashing on the bed in desperate need. Finally, he stopped and spoke. "Last lesson, boy," he said as he rose from his knees in front of me. I sat up from my prone position to find his hardness directly in front of me.

"Kiss it." Tentatively, I opened my lips and gently sucked the head as it peaked out from his foreskin. The pleasure I felt taking in just this small portion of him rivaled what he had done to me against the wall. I wanted him. More of him. I tongued a line around the rim, just underneath his foreskin, and back again. Edward's breath was harsh and heated. In an effort to undo him, I pushed gently back toward his body with my lips, taking all of him in my mouth and moaning. He braced himself on my shoulders and deftly pushed me back on the bed. "Enough." It was a whisper. He couldn't do more.

He hooked his arms underneath my knees, kissed my cheeks and then my lips and murmured, "Watch me take you, Jasper. Watch and learn." Then he was inside me. Maddeningly slow and tortuously forceful, he took me. How he made me rouse to him again, I'll never know, but I was painfully hard as he relentlessly pushed into me. Sweat poured from his brow onto mine, and he dipped his head to lick a hot line across my chest.

"Oh, Jasper, this is what you need to know. Goddamn it, boy. This."

"Edward, please. How do I … tell me what I need to, please." I was incoherent.

"I'm not letting go of you." I wanted his hands on me as much as he did. "Touch yourself. Get your hand wet and pull. Now, Jasper." I licked my palm and brought it to myself, furiously meeting him, feeling the pull of orgasm and the shocking heat of completion.

Each thrust was bringing him closer, so I pulled him into a heated kiss as he groaned my name, shuddered and stilled against my backside.

When I could speak I asked him the question Reggie had brought up, and that kept burning in the back of my mind. "Why have you not been to England in a decade?" He turned to me with a wicked glint in his green eyes, "England's a frigid place. I like my boys to sweat."

Twined together some hours later, sated and exhausted, chilled from the cooling sweat on our bare skin, I asked him what this night meant.

"It means whatever you want it to mean, Jasper. But don't get sentimental. We won't be friends. Or fishing buddies. Or lovers. But we'll have this. In fact," he murmured as he grabbed my much abused ass, "I'll be the only one to ever have this."

I couldn't but agree with him.

"Do you feel like a man?"

"Edward, no. I feel like a god."

He laughed and kissed me, soft as Spanish moss. 

_**Thanks for reading!**_


End file.
